


in the mood for

by jeolmeoniji



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Mentions of alcohol, confusing and dreamy, how it's like to be lost and in your early 20s, inspired by wong kar-wai movie in the mood for love, it's not as hardcore as the tags make it look like, kind of unreliable narrator, set in hong kong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28449207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeolmeoniji/pseuds/jeolmeoniji
Summary: “I don't really know what I'm doing here, but let me think about it after I've eaten my own weight in beef noodles,” Yangyang theatrically says as if a purpose in life is a detail less important than a bowl of meat broth.Yukhei remains pensive while slurping his noodles too loudly.What is Sicheng doing here?What isYukheidoing here, too?
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Wong Yuk Hei | Lucas
Comments: 6
Kudos: 48
Collections: NCTV Secret Santa 2020





	in the mood for

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pastel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastel/gifts).



> to the person i wrote this ff for, i wish you a really merry christmas (a bit late) and a wonderful new year. all your prompts were gorgeous and i would love to reach out to you after reveals~ i hope you'll enjoy this ff!
> 
> i watched the movie "in the mood for love" where i got most of my inspiration for this ff :) i advise you to listen to the soundtrack by shigeru umebayashi while reading it (i listened to it the whole time i was writing it)

Yukhei has never been to Shanghai but the city keeps appearing in his everyday life at random moments, like when he takes a turn after the breakfast restaurant at the angle of his street and he bumps into someone.

Chenle doesn't mind that Yukhei is way taller than him and that it had kinda hurt when they collided, and they decide to eat something together in this uneventful morning – except the fact that their lives collided and now it seems that they are going to spend time together. Chenle is from Shanghai, his family is loaded and they have seen more of the world than Yukhei could even imagine. Chenle's been to Vienna and he's even sung at big venues for Europeans that probably still confuse asian countries. Yukhei hears through his loud voice that he is the incarnation of everything Yukhei thinks Shanghai is; he talks about his city with the same loudness and eccentricity that Yukhei imagines it is to be walking in its streets.

Yukhei remembers this short story he's read one day he stayed in the school library instead of going to his class.  _ Shanghai's foxtrot. _ He remembers not really liking his literature class but liking how Mu Shiying has written his story like Yukhei watches a movie. It's like he can see the movements of the camera and hear the soundtrack in his ears just by moving his eyes on black characters printed on paper.

The way he also knows that this short story has never been finished but has still been published makes him think of his own life – that he's right in it, writing it as the seconds pass like sand grain in a hourglass, and that it's even better that it's not a finished story because then it would mean he's not living anymore.

Hong Kong is as diverse and lively as Shanghai; his own city has nothing to be ashamed of. Yukhei loves Hong Kong because it is loud and it is brilliant, even more when the sun has gone to sleep and he can admire the neons arboring the tall and otherwise dark and dull buildings. It's like another world that can only be seen in the shadows, something people in plain daylight would never be aware of.

The sea of bright colors makes Yukhei's head spin sometimes. Through the smoke of a cigarette he lights up once in a while, it creates a dance that he wonders if someone would be able to recreate. He sees the city through the lense of a camera, out of focus. He still finds beauty in how blurry it is. His life is like that, too. Blurry, uncertain, a bit pointless, but he still likes it. He still finds life beautiful.

He thinks of Shanghai like it is a city that isn't really real, that he hears of only through other people that have been there. He is the guy who never left his childhood village and waits for explorers to come discover him and share their knowledge with him.

He'd like to be an explorer too, but life is a whirlwind he's stuck into.

  
  
  
  
  


Yukhei meets Sicheng through Chenle. It is late in the night and the room is blurry with smoke and laughters, and Yukhei is absentmindedly looking at the different beer bottles opened on the low table in the apartment he's ended up in for the night. It's like a landscape of Hong Kong, the different sizes looking like buildings that he can see by his windows when he's gotten nothing else to do than switching the radio on and listening to Andy Lau's last hit song that makes everyone in Hong Kong crazy in love.

Sicheng wears a simple white shirt and coton beige pants. Yukhei could think that he makes it look like he’s out of a fashion magazine, but actually Yukhei thinks he looks more like this boy who’s a grade above you that you sometimes see in the hallway of your school, and that is undeniably handsome to the point you can’t help but look forward to seeing him. It doesn’t mean Sicheng couldn’t be on magazine covers; but models on glazed paper are so distant and far away from his reality that it would be sad to compare Sicheng to that.

Sicheng sits in the armchair next to the couch Yukhei is on. He sips at his glass, looking around him with curiosity, yet he doesn’t look like he wants to interact much. Yukhei is curious, too.

Yukhei learns his name when Chenle comes crashing between the two of them and happily introduces them. Yukhei doesn’t really know how they happened to know each other, considering that it’s Chenle who’s new to Hong Kong too, but it’s a quality that the younger boy has that doesn’t ask for an explanation.

Sicheng has an incredible presence yet he doesn’t take part in the overall buzz that everyone is in. He intrigues Yukhei so much but Yukhei doesn’t ask for much, just like he didn’t ask for much with that older student he’d just be happy to see in the hallways. He’s already got more information with Sicheng, since he knows his name.

When he leaves the party, what Yukhei remembers the most is Sicheng’s little smile and chuckle. He wonders if he’ll see him again.

  
  
  
  
  


Yangyang is from Taipei and he doesn't shut up about the street food from there. He’s a friend of Chenle that he’s met at the same party he’s seen Sicheng, but Yangyang is more talkative, and also a little bit younger. Becoming friends with Yangyang isn’t difficult at all, and that’s why Yukhei is with him in a night market of Hong Kong because he can’t let Yangyang slander his own city when it comes to street food.

It’s funny to Yukhei that he spends a meal so casually with Yangyang so little time after he’s actually met him. He can’t quite believe that’s how relations between people actually begin and develop. A week ago he had no idea that a boy with a big smile and an affection for boba milk tea – the last trend going on in Taipei, apparently – would be next to him in a beef noodles stand right now, talking about which japanese cartoons they like best.

Yukhei loves night markets because everything is so cheap and loud and delicious. If he craves for something sweet he can literally take two steps to the other end of the street to get himself some egg tarts.

Yangyang has moved from Taipei to Hong Kong for some obscure reasons. It has more to do with the fact that he doesn’t know what he wants his life to be hence the reason being obscure, and less to do with a scenario involving an arranged marriage he’s trying to escape.

“I don't really know what I'm doing here, but let me think about it after I've eaten my own weight in beef noodles,” Yangyang theatrically says as if a purpose in life is a detail less important than a bowl of meat broth.

Yukhei remains pensive while slurping his noodles too loudly.

_ What is Sicheng doing here? _ What is  _ Yukhei  _ doing here, too?

  
  
  
  
  


Yukhei lives his early twenties the same way he looks through his open windows. Present yet out of it.

There is so much noise and life going on without him being needed. One day he sees a new store opening; someone is playing the piano the floor above him; the music is familiar and yet there are mistakes here and there. Cars are polluting the streets and it's grey but the sky is blue sometimes and Yukhei looks at all of this and it paints a vivid picture in the moment of his life that he wonders if he'll actually remember precisely.

It's like he's a tree with its roots strongly attached to the feet of his bed, and he absorbs everything like a tree absorbs sun rays and oxygen to live. Yukhei wonders if he'd be able to breathe somewhere else, and he hopes he can, but he doesn't know how to move away nor if it's actually a good idea.

It's a question for later.

  
  
  
  
  


Sicheng looks distant like a character in a movie that you desperately want to know more about but the director has decided not to give them a story, and it is frustrating.

Yukhei thinks of him when he lifts heavy packages from cities all over the world – Paris, Sydney, Tokyo, Shanghai, Wenzhou. Sicheng has told him he is originally from Wenzhou; at least it is one bit that he knows for sure about him. He imagines Sicheng's fingers, so delicate and pretty, typing letters in the office he's been hired as a secretary. He knows that through Chenle, because Chenle can get everyone to spill stuff while Yukhei feels like a neon light sign that malfunctions.

Neon lights are everywhere here and it’s kinda what Hong Kong is famous for too. Everyone expects to know about them, to know what they look like. But it becomes such a common thing that in the end, no one really pays attention to them in their individuality. What people want is to see the maladive accumulation of them, not what is written on them, right? In a picture, no one cares that there are three karaoke neon signs so close next to each other. The signs lose their purpose and we only remember the light they emanate all at the same time.

Aren’t people like that too? In a sea of people, no one cares that Yukhei is part of them. He’s one in the crowd. If he weren’t there the crowd would still work properly; but if everyone thinks that and leaves, then what does the crowd become? Who’s the last one to stand still?

And when Yukhei feels like he’s fading away, he hears his name.

“Yukhei?”

Yukhei looks up from the grey pavement he was lost in as he walked; in front of him stands Sicheng, with a similar white shirt from that first time they saw each other at the party, but this time he also wears a thin tie the color of a dark red wine. He looks gorgeous and almost too out of place in the cacophony of the street. Around them, there are too many scooters going too fast and people screaming at each other for normal conversations. Yukhei wants to wince because he thinks that Sicheng might shatter like a glass of wine and spill everything on the sidewalk, with how the sounds of the city never provide a relief of silence.

“Hi, Sicheng,” Yukhei says instead of explaining he compared Sicheng’s delicate wrist to crystal in his head. “Funny seeing you here,” _ I actually can’t really realize you have a life just like mine and are a human being who lives in the same streets of Hong Kong as me. _

“Oh, my boss gave me my afternoon and I was wandering around to see where I could eat for lunch.”

Yukhei sees this as the movie director finally introducing a better understanding of their most mysterious character, and Yukhei has always liked movies.

“I know a nice restaurant close to here. I was actually on my way to eat as well, should we eat together?”

Sicheng eyes him for a silent second and Yukhei feels like he’s being judged for something more important than a simple invitation for lunch.

“It’s kind of you. Lead the way?”

They end up at the usual restaurant Yukhei likes to go to, and to have Sicheng in front of him, it creates a little bit of a surreal image, like a brand new and taller building between all the timeless ones that Hong Kong raises like children. Something you need time to get accustomed to, but it doesn’t mean you’re annoyed.

Today, Yukhei lets his mouth ramble as much as he lets his thoughts ramble and trample one upon another.

“Do you usually eat lunch by yourself, or with colleagues?”

Sicheng sits at the table with a jarring elegance compared to the other customers mostly huddled above their plates.

“When I can, I eat with my boyfriend. But he is busy today. Really busy, lately,” he adds with a smaller voice as if he’s saying it to himself, as if he’s trying to convince himself of something.

Yukhei has a hard time swallowing the  _ jiaozi  _ he’s taken in one big bite.

“Oh, you have a boyfriend? Have you met him here?”

“No, he’s from Wenzhou like me. He got a job opportunity here in Hong Kong so that’s why I followed him here.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

Yukhei doesn’t really know if it is, but that’s what you’re supposed to say, aren’t you? Sicheng hums out of habit.

“I also had an opportunity somewhere else, but we decided on Hong Kong in the end.”

“Really? What offer were you given then?”

Sicheng raises his head slightly from the contemplation of his lunch.

“I’ve been accepted into the Beijing dance academy.”

And when Sicheng says that, Yukhei discerns many different emotions that were completely absent before: there’s pride (Sicheng’s eyes seem the most alive right now), there’s affection (Sicheng’s smile is soft now), but there’s also a heavy layer of sadness that Yukhei sees from afar like he would see a big wave away from the shore.

“But you… you didn’t go, then?”

“Well, Hong Kong was more interesting.”

_ For your boyfriend, but obviously not for you _ , Yukhei wants to say but he doesn’t. He feels suddenly upset. It’s weird, because he doesn’t know Sicheng for a long time, but to hear about shattered dreams makes Yukhei want to cry, to throw a tantrum like a kid.

And then Yukhei realizes with horror that maybe Sicheng hates Hong Kong. But Sicheng takes his chopsticks again, and eats.

“This restaurant really is a good one, Yukhei. Thank you for bringing me here, I appreciate it.”

Yukhei is a bit speechless, because Sicheng could have said it out of politeness, but the smile he offers him and the calm and comfortable expression he arbors prove him that he truly thinks what he just said.

  
  
  
  
  


So, Sicheng enters his life like you enter a movie theater. When you sit in the screening room and the movie begins, there’s the constant succession of scenes in front of your eyes, without you moving a finger for it. It rolls and rolls and you just accept it.

  
  
  
  
  


“Why are you wearing a dress?”

Yukhei enters Sicheng's room without knocking, like he's used to now. Sicheng's landlord lets him enter the apartment as if he himself lives there. Yukhei thinks the old woman has a soft spot for his big smile and big eyes and she never lets him leave without a bowl of hot soup that fills his stomach with warmth and hope in people's kindness and the world's future.

Sicheng's boyfriend isn't here, as always. And Sicheng is wearing a dress.

The material is silky, a deep black with silver details, and it hugs Sicheng's subtle curves to perfection. The collar is high on his neck and the hem of the skin-tight dress stops just under Sicheng's knees. Yukhei thinks it doesn't look really useful if Sicheng wants to dance like he's seen him dance once. (Open to the world, virevoltant and spinning and looking like a swan. Yukhei thinks it's a shame Sicheng isn't studying at that school in Beijing he has talked about, but then he also realizes that if he was at that school Yukhei would have never met him.)

“I saw a coworker wearing a similar one and I thought it would look good on me,” Sicheng explains, eyeing himself with attention in the mirror.

In the reflection, Yukhei sees himself too, usual big eyes and his mouth half-open because of the surprise. Only the surprise, right?

Sicheng spins one time and the light slides on the material like a wave without letting any drop of water on the floor. Sicheng looks mesmerizing, and Yukhei is about to choke because an emotion has travelled from the bottom of his belly to his throat. It’s ready to spill on the carpet, but it’s something that he should gulp back down before someone sees it.

It’s even more embarrassing than getting drunk.

“You look good,” Yukhei says, trying to stay so neutral that he sounds fake, as fake as the smiles Sicheng shows him when he talks about his boyfriend.

“Thanks, I hope my boyfriend will like it too.”

Here it is, the smile. At least Yukhei is not the only one who’s not genuine in this conversation.

  
  
  
  
  


Sometimes after one beer too many, Yukhei asks himself important questions.  _ Can Sicheng dance foxtrot? _

  
  
  
  
  


“He's cheating on me.”

Sicheng says it at the breakfast table. Outside of the shop, it's early but Hong Kong is already overflowing with sounds. Hong Kong always feels like it's on the verge of exploding, almost bursting at the seams with how many people are living so close to each other. Yukhei likes it because it keeps him on the edge.

Sicheng's boyfriend is cheating on him. Yukhei has his chopsticks halfway between his greasy plate and his greasy lips. He blinks and he doesn't really know what to say. The restaurant is loud but Sicheng is quiet – he always has been on the quiet side, almost being the odd one in this city, but Yukhei has always liked him all the same.

Sicheng says that his boyfriend is cheating on him like he'd say that he's heard for the umpteenth time Andy Lau's new song on the radio on his way to Yukhei's. Like he isn't surprised but tired of it.

Yukhei has never met Sicheng’s boyfriend. He’s always busy, he’s always at work, he’s always travelling with clients, he’s always at a late colleagues dinner, he’s always everywhere but by Sicheng’s side.

And when he’s by someone else’s side, it’s Yukhei who’s by Sicheng’s side.

“How… how do you know?”

Sicheng makes a vague gesture with his hand, as if it doesn’t matter. It actually doesn’t, really, because the truth suffices in itself. Yukhei feels silly with his question.

“So, what will you do?”

Yukhei’s brain feels like it’s driving at the same speed of a motorbike running, roaring and too loud and painful, but it doesn’t move one bit, useless. Couldn’t even go to the other end of the street to get egg tarts.

“He invited me on a date tonight. And then hopefully he goes back home with me.”

Home.

The motor is sputtering, ridiculous, and then it stops, it surrenders.

Yukhei thinks that home for Sicheng should be Beijing. He would like it to be Beijing, because if he thinks a little bit more maybe he thinks he could himself be a home for Sicheng like Hong Kong is Yukhei’s home, but it seems too utopian, while he knows Beijing has something tangible to offer Sicheng.

What could Yukhei offer Sicheng, other than company for a greasy breakfast?

  
  
  
  
  


Chenle is rich and it still baffles Yukhei that they are friends, but he is not complaining. Not because he takes advantage of Chenle’s money, but because Chenle really is such a wholesome person – and if sometimes, indeed, Chenle’s money allows them to buy expensive stuff in too bright shopping malls, then no one is complaining.

When they go through the automatic doors and that they are greeted by men in black suits, Yukhei feels like it’s written on his face that he’s not really part of this world, unlike Chenle. Yangyang, next to him, seems a lot more excited and doesn’t care if he doesn’t fit in with the usual codes that this kind of place brings. It helps that Chenle is himself such a personage and has chosen to carry himself the way he does.

“You belong on one of these,” Chenle comments when they pass by a poster for a french brand with a guy looking back at them with a piercing gaze.

“Are you kidding?” Yukhei laughs, but Chenle doesn’t echo it.

“I am not.”

“He’s right,” Yangyang adds, and then he jumps a little next to Yukhei, “you have everything they could be looking for. You’re so tall and have big eyes and a handsome face and a penetrative gaze too, when you want.” Yangyang squints when he tries to demonstrate what he’s talking about, but then sighs. “And you have that lonely and lost angel thrown on Earth kind of look when you’re deep in your thoughts. You could do better than that guy, even,” Yangyang rambles and Chenle nods at everything he says.

Yukhei has never really entertained the idea even if he knows he’s good looking. But today he thinks of it a bit more, and he feels silly, but also intrigued. Should he? Could he?

_ “You should be a model, Yukhei,” _ and Yukhei thinks of it still when he’s back in his little flat where he can see Hong Kong through the window, but the feeling must be really different than from the top of an ivory building with a glass of expensive champagne in one hand and a suitcase full of international fashion show memories in the other.

  
  
  
  
  


Chenle gets a friend of a friend of a friend to hire Yukhei for an afternoon for a photoshoot. It’s not supposed to be a big deal but it still is. Yukhei is working for something other than discharging packages from all over the world; he’s working to show his own face to the world. (Well, not yet. Maybe one day. Maybe sooner than expected. For now, the pictures of his face will be hung somewhere in an art gallery of Hong Kong, where he would have never been to otherwise.)

Sicheng goes to see the single picture of Yukhei in that gallery, and with him by his side and a glass of alcohol in his hand, Yukhei kinda feels like he’s getting closer to the top of that expensive building he once thought of.

He leaves with several business cards in his pockets.

  
  
  
  
  


Sicheng’s boyfriend isn’t available as always, so it’s Yukhei who goes to the movie theater with Sicheng to watch the new cops and assassins film that everyone in Hong Kong is talking about.

Yangyang jokes about it and calls it a date when Yukhei tells him he can’t hang out because of this.

“Sicheng has a boyfriend. It is not a date,” Yukhei comments.

“I know he has one, but it can still be a date. Do you think that guy doesn’t call all the time he spends with whoever the hell instead of Sicheng,  _ dates _ ?”

It makes Yukhei feel a bit weird, almost nauseous, because even if Yangyang makes it look a bit funny, makes it look like Yukhei got the right to call it a date out loud, he doesn’t think it is that amusing. Sicheng never says anything; being cheated on must hurt but he keeps his words for himself and instead chooses to see Yukhei when he wants. And honestly, Yukhei is happy with that, when he doesn’t think too far. He’s a friend. He has no right to interfere in Sicheng’s relationship, even if he wants to scream and make more noise than a building construction site in the middle of Hong Kong’s new borough.

If he only focuses on Sicheng’s side profile in the darkness of the screening room, then what exists outside doesn’t anymore.

The movie they chose has nothing romantic in it. It is full of explosions and over-the-top fights, resonating gunshots and winces from bleeding men. So far away from their lives in Hong Kong even if it is the same city.

And yet.

Kissing Sicheng feels like going underwater.

Maybe it is the alcohol in Yukhei’s blood and the bitterness in his mouth that makes the experience similar to a VHS that is rewinding. It sometimes stops and jolts and multiple pictures switch in front of his eyes; it feels like that to kiss Sicheng. Something not quite right, something that you're not supposed to look at – you need to watch a movie from start to end and not end to start like when it's over and you want to go back to the beginning of it to watch it again later.

Yukhei wants to kiss Sicheng again later, but later his boyfriend might be back and Yukhei has nothing to do there and needs to leave the movie theater.

Yukhei knows he only has the duration of the film to drink Sicheng’s lips and it is the only time he allows himself to do it, because in plain light, he doesn’t know if he would have the courage to do so.

  
  
  
  
  


They don’t talk about the kiss and Yukhei isn’t even surprised. Sicheng tells him a week later that he can’t hang out because his boyfriend has a free day.

It doesn’t mean Sicheng doesn’t want to see him. It doesn’t mean Yukhei thinks everything’s alright. The scene plays in his mind everyday, and mostly late at night when he doesn’t have international packages to deliver. People always say they can recall the feeling of someone’s lips on their own, when it was an especially good kiss. And Yukhei is mad because despite how vivid his memories can be, there’s no tangible sensation. His lips are chapped and don’t press against Sicheng’s mouth, and it is frustrating.

Hong Kong feels like the city of frustration, lately.

  
  
  
  
  


One night, Sicheng sleeps at Yukhei’s. They cram themselves in Yukhei’s single bed, but Yukhei isn’t Sicheng’s boyfriend so only their sides touch and they look at the ceiling. The window is cracked open because otherwise it’s too stuffy, and the noise of Hong Kong enters the room.

“Do you actually know where you want to be?” Sicheng whispers when Yukhei just spotted a little cobweb in a corner, glinting under the faint artificial neon lights that always find their way inside.

_ In my favourite restaurant at lunch, with you talking about your life. _

_ In a dark movie theater, as black as the silky dress you once put on, kissing you. _

_ At the top of a fancy building, drinking a dark red wine like the color of the necktie you wore once. _

_ Maybe somewhere far away from Hong Kong, because that’s all I’ve seen and I want more, even if it’s scary. _

“On the cover of a fashion magazine,” Yukhei answers, and Sicheng hums.

Yukhei wonders if Sicheng is thinking of a dance stage in Beijing where he swirls and jumps all he wants, or if he’s thinking of a dark movie theater, or a bed that isn’t Yukhei’s.

When he turns to ask the question back, Sicheng’s eyes are closed and his breath is slow and steady.

  
  
  
  
  


Yukhei thinks they are a group of fallen angels. He finds the comparison pretty. Maybe it's mainstream but it can be as mainstream as Andy Lau's songs, he doesn't care. If he wants better phrased comparisons, he goes back to  _ Shanghai’s foxtrot _ and Mu Shiying’s works.

  
  
  
  
  


It happens too fast, like a glass of alcohol that you chug and you then see the world through a blurry veil. The world moves around you at its normal pace but it looks slow yet like it’s going past the speed limit.

They all tacitly thought that the first one to leave Hong Kong would be Sicheng. But Yukhei gets a modelling opportunity that feels like that day he ran into Chenle: leaving him a bit groggy, not sure of what had happened, but not angry whatsoever. A bit confused but still accepting Chenle’s invitation to eat together even if they knew nothing about each other at that time, just like Yukhei accepts the job opportunity because it is something serious and Chenle swears to him that it is legit. And if Yukhei believes in someone, it is Chenle for sure.

Yangyang can't shut up about how Yukhei has the face to be on the front page of fashion magazines for an obnoxious french brand with too much nasal sounds in it.

Yukhei is honestly thrilled that this is happening to him; there are the doubts and the anxiety and the anticipation of how much his life will change, but wasn’t it what he wanted? Looking at Hong Kong’s scenery feels like watching your favourite comfort movie that you know by heart. It’s calming and you’re not disappointed because you know exactly what happens. Hong Kong is routine and Yukhei knows his city, but he wants to know more cities.

He also wants to kiss Sicheng again, but he has to make a choice. It seems more reasonable to go to the other end of the globe to work with fashion brands.

  
  
  
  
  


The whole time Yukhei prepares his departure, he continues to see Sicheng when he has time. He wants it to feel like the usual, when they share bits of their lives, or simple silences. Despite everything, Yukhei adores Sicheng with his whole being, but it feels forbidden, like he’s doing something he has no right to wish for.

“So what’s happening between you and Sicheng?” Yangyang asks him, the day before Yukhei’s departure.

The question honestly feels long overdue. It is almost too weird to hear it at such a time like this, when they won’t be sharing their everyday life anymore. It’s a question that only bothers Yukhei, because he doesn’t know how to answer it – or he knows how to but the answer doesn’t please him. It is bitter on his tongue, similar to a forgotten tea he’s left infused for far too long.

“There’s nothing to say.”

There are plenty of things to say, but it is messy and too sensitive. How can Yukhei explain that as much as he’s thrilled to discover a new work, he’s hopeless in front of all these vibrant memories of Sicheng that don’t want to leave his mind. He doesn’t even know if he actually knows Sicheng that well, if they’ve ever gone together through a secret door hidden between loud bars, that no neon light advertises, a place where it’s supposed to be for only a few, if not at all.

Yukhei has never talked about the kiss to anyone, not even Sicheng himself.

“I think the same day you got that job opportunity, Sicheng broke up with his boyfriend. Didn’t he tell you?”

Sicheng hasn’t.

Yukhei feels like the background music of a movie has suddenly stopped.

  
  
  
  
  


They all cry at the airport when it’s time for Yukhei to leave. But his tears hide something heavier; they taste like bad timing and bittersweet kisses from the darkness of a room, even though Yukhei wants to try to shine and be part of the light coming from the screen.

What do Sicheng’s tears taste like?

  
  
  
  
  


Life swipes you away from your hometown, despite how you promise yourself that you’ll keep in touch even if you leave. At some point, you wake up and you realize it’s been days you haven’t thought of how it is going back home.

  
  
  
  
  
  


(Sicheng still catches himself looking for a certain boy with starry eyes and an unabashed laugh, each time he goes too late at night in the empty market streets. But Yukhei is no longer by his side in the big city they once shared, except on glazed magazine covers he sees between strangers' hands.

Yukhei has nothing to be envious of Chenle, with the number of cities he's been to for his job.)

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Yukhei has now been to Shanghai, and to Tokyo and Paris and Beijing and even Wenzhou, and every city keeps appearing in his everyday life at random moments, like when he takes a turn after the convenience store at the angle of his hotel in Beijing and he bumps into someone.

And when he bumps into Sicheng it's like he bumps into all of the cities he's been to; like he bumps into Hong Kong.

  
  


Like he bumps into his lost world.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked it, i would love to hear your opinion on this ff!!
> 
> my twt has changed, you can find me at @/fromhomeunit ❤
> 
> have a wonderful day sweet people!!


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